Ministers strike deal on posting of workers

Employment ministers from the European Union’s member states yesterday agreed a compromise on how to regulate workers posted from one EU member state to another, following 18 months of negotiations.

Under the deal, host member states would be free to decide the verification measures to be imposed on companies posting workers, subject to these requirements and controls being proportionate and the European Commission having been notified.

The compromise also addresses concerns that companies in the construction industry have managed to evade their legal responsibilities by hiding behind networks of sub-contractors. The deal, which still has to be negotiated with the European Parliament, would require member states to change their national liability rules.

Algimanta Pabedinskienė, the labour minister of Lithuania, which holds the presidency of the Council of Ministers, said that ministers had managed to strike the right balance between “facilitating the exercise of economic freedoms and protecting workers’ rights”.

László Andor, the European commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion, said: “There is an urgent need to reinforce the safeguards in EU rules to ensure that posted workers’ rights are respected in practice, and to allow European businesses to operate with more legal certainly and transparency.”

The European Commission proposed strengthening the 1996 posting-of-workers directive, which requires posted workers to receive certain social rights, in March 2012 in response to concerns about so-called ‘social dumping’. It proposed a limited list of actions that member states could take to ensure that social rules were being respected.

The European Parliament’s committee on employment and social affairs adopted a report in June 2013 that changed the Commission’s proposals, setting minimum controls that member states had to undertake, while giving them the freedom to go further.